Mail Users Take Licking on Stamp Cost

Question: Well, here we go again with another soak-the-poor-consumer postal rate increase. I’ve still got a few of those temporary B and C stamps kicking around in desk drawers, and who remembers what they’re worth now? Did it ever occur to the Postal Service to make up its deficit out of the pocket of the junk mailers instead of the letter-writing public?--V.S.

Answer: You’re not going to take much comfort in this but, charitably, the Class 3, bulk-rate mailers (nobody in the Postal Service allows that word beginning with J to pass his lips) got hit with a much heftier increase than we did. To one degree or another, though, all mail users got hit with the increase that went into effect April 3 (at 12:01 a.m.).

No Freeloaders

Under the mandate handed down to the Postal Service by Congress, there aren’t any freeloaders anymore. Each class of mail has to pay its own way, according to Dave Mazer, the Post Office’s public information spokesman here. For thee and me, that first-class letter to the mortgage company explaining how the family dog ate the payment booklet jumped from 22 cents to 25 cents for a 13.6% increase, while the post card to Aunt Max from scenic, downtown Youngstown, went from 14 cents to 15 cents for an increase of about 7%.

Second-class mailers (magazines and newspapers), however, faced an 18.1% increase, Mazer said. And the Postal Rate Commission--the watchdog group that is separate and apart from the Postal Service, and which makes all rate increase recommendations--really threw it to the third-class mail users (the direct mail advertisers) who got hit with a 24.9% rate increase. (A group of these users have filed suit trying to delay the implementation of the increase, but such efforts in the past haven’t been very productive--like not at all.)

Transitional Stamp

Yes, you’re right. For at least a month a transitional E stamp, which doesn’t bear any monetary denomination on it, will be in use and, in fact, was in distribution a day after the rate increase announcement. Because the stamp was designed and chosen before the amount of the increase was even determined, its cent-value was omitted.

“At least this E stamp is a handsome one,” Mazer said--a full-color painting of the Earth as seen from the moon and executed by futurist-artist Robert McCall. The earlier A, B, C, and D temporary stamps were one color and as artistically inspired as the wallpaper design in a cut-rate motel. The new, regular, 25-cent stamp should be in general circulation sometime in May, Mazer said. And, while the design hasn’t been specifically pinned down, a sketch of a pheasant seems to have the inside track at the moment.

There is one 25-cent stamp already in circulation--and has been since April ‘86--but it will be a hard one to find. “It is a commemorative stamp with a sketch of writer Jack London on it,” Mazer said, “but these commemoratives have a very limited press run, are bought mainly by stamp collectors and are generally out of circulation in about 60 to 90 days.”

Some Still Around

While the transitional Earth stamp will, naturally, have a value of 25 cents, some of the earlier alphabet stamps--also undenominated--are still kicking around and occasionally resurface. And, of course, artistically dull or not, they’re still legal tender as far as mailing a letter is concerned. The trick is in remembering what they are worth (and the other trick is finding a letter carrier who doesn’t remember). Here’s a refresher course on values:

A (issued in 1978), 15 cents. B (issued in 1981), 18 cents. C (issued in 1981), 20 cents. D (issued in 1985), 22 cents.

Q: Is the Individual Retirement Account dead or isn’t it? All the banks are running ads saying that it isn’t but I can’t get a clarification in my own case: My husband and I are both employed. My employer has a pension plan, and I think I’m over the dollar limit, anyway, so the IRA is dead for me. But my husband’s employer has no pension. Isn’t he entitled to have one of his own?--J.B.

A: Don’t be confused by the confusion you’re encountering. The Internal Revenue Service is a little puzzled too. As it stands now, technically, according to Rob Giannangeli, the IRS’s public affairs spokesman here, your husband can set up an IRA for himself but only if you file your returns separately--usually not feasible in nine out of 10 cases. “The issue was supposed to be cleared up in the ‘technical corrections’ bill that was drawn up and given to Congress to unravel a lot of these things but, so far, it’s not been passed.”

It could make quite a difference: While the cut-off for having an IRA is an income of $50,000 for a couple, there is no ceiling on having an IRA if your employee provides no pension plan.